UNC adds new faces to the fold

The University of Northern Colorado football team has several new faces on its coaching staff and one familiar one.

Kay Dalton, the Bears former head coach (2000-05) and offensive coordinator of UNC’s back-to-back Division II national championship teams in 1996-97, has signed on to be a volunteer offensive consultant for UNC this upcoming season.

The 79-year-old Dalton, who will turn 80 in May, has been serving as an assistant coach under Mark Roggy at Greeley West High School the past few years.

UNC coach Earnest Collins, Jr., asked Dalton if he would come back as a consultant, wanting to take advantage of his wealth of knowledge as one of the most respected offensive minds in football having coached nearly 50 years at the pro and college level, including stints with four NFL teams and two Canadian Football League teams.

Off course, Collins has close ties with Dalton. Collins was a defensive back for UNC (1991-94) when Dalton was UNC’s offensive coordinator and he hired Collins as his secondary and special teams coach when Dalton was first hired as the Bears head man.

Dalton also has ties to other members of the coaching staff, including quarterbacks coach Jon Boyer and wide receivers coach Keith Grable, who both played and coached under Dalton.

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That was a big reason that Dalton decided to come back, along with his desire to get back into the college game.

“I’m hoping I can help, trying to get this thing back on the right feel and get us to win some football games,” Dalton said.

His influence is being felt already. The Bears are planning to use a lot more of the pro style offense that Dalton ran when he was the offensive coordinator and head coach at UNC and mix it with the no-huddle, spread offense the Bears ran this past fall in Collins’ first year as head coach.

That means the Bears will use a lot more sets with two tight ends and a running back and a fullback and with the quarterback under center.

“There will be some wrinkles in there that are new for us and that he is bringing back and he is helping us with the little bitty tweaks of it,” Collins said. “We’ll still have some of what we used to do in there, it’s just that we have got to give (starting quarterback) Seth (Lobato) more options.”

Dalton will not work directly with players, but will just advise the coaches during practice and will be in the box on game days giving advice on play-calling to the coaches. He will also be helping with game-planning during the week.

Collins knows what an asset Dalton will be.

“It’s a great deal because he has been in football probably longer than anybody on our staff,” Collins said. “He’s been coaching football longer than we’ve been alive. So any time you get a chance to pick the brain of someone like that, it is just a great asset for you to have.”

Collins has several new assets on his coaching staff, including a pair of young first-year coaches that he is confident will help the Bears improve this fall.

For the first time really since UNC made the transition to Division I, the Bears were able to add two paid position coaches to the staff with the addition of defensive line coach Jon Carpenter and new offensive line coach Chris Smith.

Carpenter comes from a long lineage of football expertise. His father Rob played 11 seasons in the NFL with the New York Giants Houston Oilers and his brother Bobby is currently a linebacker with the New England Patriots. He also has two other brothers who played Division I football.

Carpenter, who spent the last two seasons at Notre Dame working under Brian Kelly as a defensive assistant, knows that he is wealth of knowledge growing up around football will make him a better coach with UNC.

“There is no question that my father is a major influence in my life with football and he has an extensive knowledge having been coached by some of the greatest coaches of our time,” said Carpenter, whose dad played under a pair of likely future Hall of Famers in Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick. “Bobby as well. He’s been with several NFL teams now. He’s played with great players and he has been coached by great coaches.”

Collins wasn’t even planning on hiring Smith.

However, the former four-year starting center at Holy Cross who was a graduate assistant last season at the University of Buffalo, wowed him Collins so much at a recent coaches convention that Collins just couldn’t pass on the opportunity to hire the young man.

“I basically hunted him down,” Smith said. “We were at the convention and I could tell he was trying to avoid me and I had a couple coaches that were good friends with him and good friends with me that stood by me and helped me hunt him down. I know he didn’t want to meet with me, but I got in there and I got excited and started talking about my offensive line and when I start talking about offensive line, I get very animated and very excited and 2 1/2 hours felt like 20 minutes.”

It was that enthusiasm that sold Collins on hiring Smith.

“I knew I was getting a good, young coach that knew what he was talking about that had experience with the position and was going to be able to get every ounce of what we needed out of our kids,” Collins said.